


July

by orphan_account



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Death, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I Wrote This While Listening to Mother Mother, Kinda depressing, M/M, One Shot, Time Loop, but you can kind of figure out who the others are, frank is the only named character, trigger warning?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29377188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Life does not last forever, and neither does love, no matter what you may have heard.
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	July

Frank woke up, and it was the first morning of July. 

He smiled and rolled over and hugged his pillow, the soft rays of the sun streaming in from the open window. The wind whistled gently, the birds sang sweetly, and it was peaceful, for a change. 

He got dressed in clean clothes and ate breakfast downstairs. He cleaned his teeth and washed his face and opened every window in the house so the summer breeze could enter and dance about. And the day seemed like it would be perfect, for once. 

He raced outside as soon as he got the chance, his bag swinging on his shoulder, and he raced to the other house where the others would be waiting. They were there, sure enough, and they laughed at and with him, about the flower crown perched on his head, and the smile plastered onto his face, and it might have bothered him a while ago but nothing could ruin this day for him. 

The water was cold and the sun was hot, and the riverbugs buzzed and zipped about on the surface as they laughed and played in the shallows. And Frank threw his flower crown down on the side of the river, and he raced to the top of the rock overlooking the deep end, and he jumped off and cannonballed down into the water with a splash, and it was  _ awesome _ . 

And after the river, they all lay panting on the bank, great smiles plastered all over their faces that mirrored Frank’s. Lunch was a bag of junk food and cheap cola, and they talked and talked and laughed and sang until a chill wind swept through and made them shiver. The younger apologized and left to go home, but the older was waiting for Frank. 

The older told him that the stars would be beautiful tonight, and Frank agreed. And then the older asked if he wanted to stay up with him tonight and watch them come out to play, and Frank agreed again. And their hands brushed in the light of the sun as that chill wind seemed to disappear again. 

At home again, he phoned his mom and chattered excitedly with her about tonight, and asked for advice on what to wear and how to act and whether he would like him or not. Everything seemed so young and fresh and hopeful, and the world slowed down when he thought about that night. He wore a shirt with a superhero on, and a pair of jeans that weren’t too small or too big, and he spent the rest of the slow, slow day texting the others and playing games, and everything somehow felt… like it was leading up to something greater. 

And then the night came, and it was colder, but still warm, and he headed out with butterflies in his stomach and a nervous smile on his face, and it was only a couple of miles away but he never thought he would make it in time. When he arrived the old firehouse looked terrifying from the outside, all grey and black and sharp angles as the fiery sunset shone out behind it. But soon enough someone met him out there, all black hair and too much eyeliner and nervous smile, and Frank’s heart leapt at the sight. 

Soon, the fiery sky dulled to a pale pink, and then darkened to a rich velvety blue that could never be replicated by a camera lens. Then the diamond stars arrived, slowly at first and then all at once, and they were on the roof and watching, and it was so,  _ so  _ peaceful. And their hands found each other, and their eyes met, and it would never be like this again but it was like this  _ now _ , and they felt themselves fall further, slowly at first and then all at once, just like the stars. 

A kiss came next, and it was like they were drowning with the soft glow of first love. 

The night turned dark, and the clouds rolled overhead, and Frank rested his head on the other’s shoulder as they talked and laughed and it was so,  _ so _ perfect. 

Sleep comes for us all, and that day had to end, and so it did, with a soft rush of happiness as he slipped away, safe in the knowledge that this day would be the best ever. 

And Frank woke up, and it was the first morning of July. 

And it would be the first of July the day after that, and the day after that, and all the days after that too. It was his fault, but he loved it, and he could never bring himself to leave, because the second day of July brought sadness, oh god, so much _ grief _ . So it stayed the first, and it stayed young, and hopeful, and fresh, even as Frank grew old of mind and old of spirit. And every day was perfect, until it wasn't, and until he knew that the time had come. 

\---

And Frank woke up, a sixty-something man in a sixteen year old's body, and it was the second morning of July. 

He tried not to cry as he rolled out of bed. He brushed his teeth and washed his face and got dressed in new clothes, and he called his mom and told her about what happened in the million yesterdays, and he sat in his bedroom and sobbed. Knowledge was a powerful thing, and power played with Frank's emotions as though he was a puppet on a string. He could do nothing to change the future, only sit and wait.

The phone rang. Of course it did. He knew it was going to ring before it rang. He had lived this day a million times in his mind - only once living, but a million in his mind. Replaying every second, over and over and over again until his hand reached out to grasp the phone, shaking and sobbing still. 

A coarse voice echoed through his mind, and the replay became a reality, as those words worked themselves further and further into the woodwork of his mind. Although it was only a day of love and laughter and romance for the other, it was fifty years for Frank, and this news, this horrible, heartbreaking news, it tore at every atom of his being, a tide of grief already ripping and slashing and tearing through his mind. The phone fell from his hand and he raced downstairs again. 

It was only a couple of miles away, but he could smell the smoke as soon as he stepped outside. 

He raced down the lanes, past the river, past the firehouse, and then he could see the flickering orange-bright light of those flames, those  _ flames _ that peeked through the trees as he rounded the last corner, tears streaming down his face. The house wasn’t engulfed, per se, but every exit was blocked, every window filled with those silent, crackling tongues of fire. There were firefighters there, of course there were, but they had arrived too late, Frank knew. 

He raced forwards and tried to get into the house, but a firefighter grabbed him around the waist and pulled him back as he struggled and screamed and shook and sobbed, soot already coating his features. The other was  _ in there _ , he was  _ right there _ , and Frank could do  _ nothing _ to save him as the firefighter held him back. 

And then, oh god, the door burst open, and a stretcher was carried out, a boy, still alive but coughing so badly Frank thought he must die soon, but it wasn’t the other, it was the younger. The younger was carried into the ambulance and Frank could say nothing, the words catching in his throat as his eyes streamed with more tears. 

He broke free, and raced into the flaming house. 

And he couldn’t remember anything that happened next, just red and orange and yellow and grey, and a door, and a shout, and he remembered that feeling of grief once more tearing him apart as he slipped away, but he  _ tried  _ to hold onto consciousness, he  _ tried _ , but the other- 

\---

Frank woke up, and it was the third morning of July. 

A hospital. All clean floors and white walls and disinfectant smell, and he wished he had never gone forward, just stayed locked in that perfect day forever. The bed was too clean, and he wasn’t the one who needed it anyway, it was the other and the younger, but he didn’t know where they were because he had never made it this far before. His mother was there when he woke up, and she held his hand as they stayed staring at the blank walls in silence and a tinge of grief. 

A doctor came in next, a woman with a soft voice and cold hands, and she asked him lots of stuff and told him more stuff, and he asked about the other and the younger. At the younger’s name, she nodded and told him that the younger was okay, and a massive weight lifted from his chest. But at the older’s name, she was grave, and her face was stone, and Frank couldn’t breathe anymore as the silence became deafening. 

They had tried to keep him awake as long as possible, but a coma ensued, and he was not expected to wake up from it. And of course, Frank had  _ known  _ something like this was going to happen, he had  _ known _ . He didn’t cry - he’d done enough of that yesterday - but he felt himself sink further down, further down deep. 

Tests and talk and injections and words all flew by in a blur of sound and colour and pain. He wanted to see the younger, of course he did, but he felt that if he saw the  _ other _ he might never leave that room. He wasn’t permitted, anyway. So tests it was, and he was fine but from a few burns on his arms, and some inhaled smoke (which he did enough anyway). They would send him home tomorrow, but they needed to keep him there for monitoring because effects can run deeper than physical harm sometimes. 

At night, before he went to sleep in the cold, strange bed, he heard a knock at the door. The doctor walked in with her cold hands and soft voice, and told him that if he wanted to see the younger, he was asking for Frank, and that they should go now. 

He walks beside the doctor like a ghost, feet making no sound as they padded through the empty halls towards the younger. 

When they reached him, Frank didn’t recognise him. He looked so different, bandages and gauze covering his face, glasses lain on the side gently. A weak smile lit up his features as Frank walked in, and a few words were croaked out from that dry throat. The doctor waited at the door as the two boys stared at one another. 

Tears came next, crying and sobbing, together but unable to touch. There was pain for both of them, but the younger had it much worse, his face half covered, hands shaking and arms draped in white gauze. He could not move, and his voice was weak and trembling, thick with pain and sadness. 

Ten minutes was all it as, and then the doctor grabbed his hand and led him away from the younger, back to the bed as he still wiped tears from his face, regret, oh, regret flooded every bone in his body, and he would take it back if he could, but he couldn’t- 

\---

Frank woke up, and it was the fourth morning of July. 

No fireworks. No celebration. Not today. 

And then the fifth. 

And the sixth. 

And the seventh. 

He went home. The other stayed at the hospital, still asleep. The younger went home, too. 

And the eight, ninth, tenth. 

Not a word from the other. 

Time passed like time did, on and on, ticking forwards forever until the last day. 

The thirty first morning of July, the last morning of July. 

\--- 

It was time. 

Nothing had worked. The other was still sleeping silently, trapped in a broken-down body, and Frank knew that the time had come. After a month, after thirty days, after all of the things he regretted, the time had come. 

He wasn’t allowed in to see him one last time. 

Fifty years… 

And, now and forever, goodbye. 

In his room as the last breath was taken and love started to fade. 

In his room as life became meaningless - the only reason he was living was because of the other. His other half. The other half of his soul, his heart, his life. 

And now… 

In his room as the other died.

Leaving nothing but ash and dust and despair. 

And he would go back and change everything, he would go back and never leave, stay stuck there forever, if it meant that he would never have to say goodbye. But he never did - he never said goodbye. He never saw him. 

He would have cried, but he had forgotten how. 

And, in that small bedroom, that eternal July ended as suddenly as it had begun, and everything was quiet once more. 

\--- 

an epilogue of thoughts that belong to a dying mind

_ Light.  _

_ And then darkness.  _

_ Loud.  _

_ And then silent.  _

_ Touch.  _

_ Feel.  _

_ Skin and bones.  _

_ Nothing.  _

_ \---  _

_ Is this what death is?  _

Floating. A void surrounds him. He has no body, no mind, he just  _ is _ . Eternally suspended in the nothingness of everything that ever was and ever will be. Silence swamps his consciousness, the weight of it so heavy he wants to scream, to yell, to show this uncaring emptiness that he is still there, but he can’t. He isn’t. 

There are no memories. Nothing beyond now, and now seems to stretch on forever. Nothing to remind him of who he is, who he was, who he wanted to be. It feels like a dream, like some odd, twisted nightmare where nothing is right or real, but it  _ is _ . It’s real, and it’s the only thing he will ever know. 

_ Is this Hell?  _

A calm so absolute he wants to cry. A mournful blackness that surrounds him and all that he ever was, watching, waiting for something that will never come because this is all that there is now. Silence. Calm. Darkness. He wants to hate. He wants to hate this, this feeling of smallness and insignificance and the ridiculous notion that  _ he is alright _ that bounces around his echoing self, because he isn’t, he’s about as far from alright that anyone could ever be, and he can’t feel anything but this crushing wave of calm. 

His heart spirals out towards the void and he feels himself unravel further. He tries to fight it, to hold his battered, broken consciousness together against the unrelenting force of calm and dark and silence, but he can’t. Small pieces of himself drift away into the darkness, leaving the shell of his ghost smaller and smaller until soon there will be nothing left. 

_ There was a teaching.  _

A thought. A thought! 

A piece of the past, come to life again in this nothingness of everything. A candle flame against the darkness of death, but a light nonetheless, and he does everything he can to hold on to it. 

_ A teaching. Long ago, there was a teaching.  _

_ Ancient. An ancient teaching, but a teaching that millions of people followed.  _

As his soul spirals further and further away, he cradles the thought and shields it as best he can against the force of calm. It whispers in his ear, wrapping itself around his numb brain, nestling in so deep it cannot be uprooted even by the cold embrace of death. 

_ A Saviour and a God.  _

The thought kept thinking, and soon another thought joined it. He wanted to cry with the light, and he would have if he had known how. 

_ You were taught it, but you never believed it.  _

_ You didn’t know what to believe about life and you knew even less about death.  _

_ Another teaching would have come, if you had taken a different path. If the fire hadn’t burned, if you hadn’t fallen so hard.  _

_ One not real, or not supposed to be, at least. The teaching of a friend who would confide in you his greatest fears, his greatest hopes, his greatest dreams. A belief not in life after death, exactly, but in a journey  _ to _ death.  _

_ You would never believe this, either. You would know you weren’t supposed to.  _

_ But in your heart of hearts, you might.  _

The thoughts curl around his mind as more and more come to join them, staving away the darkness, bubbling him in an aura of light and life and  _ feeling _ . 

_ And you would believe in him, too.  _

_ And millions and millions of people would believe in you, and him, and the rest of you, and you would save some of them, and they would save you and destroy you and everything would be terrible and wonderful and glorious with the fake belief.  _

_ And then it wouldn’t. Not anymore.  _

_ The belief would stick with you long after he would be gone, reminders of it clinging to you like the first snowflakes of winter.  _

_ And all these years later…  _

_ All these years of darkness and silence and death…  _

_ You would finally know why.  _

The thoughts glow brighter and brighter as the darkness shys away, shrieking. And to join the toughs comes a  _ feeling _ , oh  _ God, _ a feeling of such great sadness it threatens to wipe him away completely, a mournful wail of a feeling, and he wants to cry and dance and sing at the wave of feeling because he can  _ feel _ ! 

_ Glow.  _

_ Fade.  _

_ Darkness.  _

_ Light.  _

And a life floods his mind, a life never lived, a life cut short by tragedy and the wonders of first love, and a life that he aches for but he  _ can’t, _ because of  _ this _ , oh God, he’s  _ dead _ . In that life he would have been the other in many’s minds, but the one in more, and- 

But there’s something else, among the flood of feeling and emotion. 

A loop, twirling round and round his consciousness, or the memory of one at least. A moment replaying thousands of times, lived only once and yet many,  _ many _ times. A replaying of love, of the calm before the storm, of the first note of a tragic symphony that would end with  _ this _ , only, well, only a month later, and the friend, the friend who was more than a friend, he knows his name, he knows his  _ face _ , and he knows what he’s done, he was trapped, holding onto the boy, to  _ him _ , and it was for…

Love. For fifty years. A July stretched into forever, preserving the single selfish act of love. He isn’t angry with the more-than-friend. He doesn’t exactly regret anything. And, if this really is death, he must be the last sparking consciousness trapped in a dark and dying mind, and the more-than-friend must be looking on, regretting everything, wishing for more time, time, time, but a single July is more than enough. 

He might love him, and he might not. More time would tell him the answer, but he has none of that, and it would be selfish to ask. So he settles in the darkness, surrounded by darkness and bright glowing thoughts, trapped in the broken mind of a broken body, and he waits. 

Maybe another July will come, he thinks. 

“Maybe,” he whispers voicelessly. “Maybe.” 

**Author's Note:**

> if you made it this far, thanks honestly 
> 
> i wrote this at three in the morning and my grammar isn't the best even when i have slept, so there might be some errors in the writing itself 
> 
> i hope you liked it!


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